I'm marrying an Armenian next year- he'll be the first person in his family to marry outside of his culture. We want to be incredibly inclusive as most of his family have only been to Armenian weddings and none of my family has been to an Armenian wedding. We have a lot of time to tweak,but here's the current game plan. I wanted to know how it sounds:
Day of tradition: In Armenian culture, the day of events start in the morning. The entire groom's family comes to the bride's family home with a band and gifts. The bride's family is all at their house with food and what not. There's a lot of dancing and celebrating. From here everyone goes to the church. We won't be doing this for our wedding. It's too logistically challenging as my family lives 70 miles away from my fiance's family.
Ceremony: this will be very American. Armenian ceremonies are typically in churches and in Armenian. Only close family goes and they can go for hours. Instead, we'll be doing an informal outdoor ceremony where everyone is invited. We will need to communicate that everyone is invited to his guests.
Cocktail hour: we will have this, it is not something commonly seen in Armenian weddings as they tend to have a long break between the ceremony and reception and far more people go to the reception than the ceremony. To tie in culture, we will likely be hiring a traditional Armenian band to play music. They will stay for probably two hours.
Introduction of the wedding party: In Armenian tradition the wedding party doesn't just come in and sit down, they start the dancing! We really want to do this with the traditional Armenian music, but one area of concern is that only one bridesmaid and groomsmen will be Armenian. So it may be uncomfortable for the others in the wedding party. We'll need to discuss it with them to see if they are open to the idea.
At this point, the receptions are very similar. We want to hire a caterer who can do a hybrid menu with Armenian and typical America fare and a DJ who will play maybe 30% Armenian music. My fiance's family will be making these cool fabric pieces with rings on them that you put on your fingers for when you dance. I think my family will have fun with those. Now, where it will be very American is that it will have a bit of a travel theme. When I shared this with my fiance he looked really confused because he's never been to a wedding with a theme before.
I am a little concerned that my family will be weary of dancing with all the Armenian dancing going on. I was thinking about having something on the chairs that will explain that this is the marrying of two cultures and that we want everyone to have fun and try something new.
What do you all think?